Agartala, May 16 : Manik Sarkar of Tripura, one of India’s last Communists, is a fine specimen of this disappearing species.

Tripura, this finger of land wrapped around Bangladesh is the last
refuge for many of India’s most endangered species, including the pygmy
hog, the white-bellied heron and, perhaps most critically, the
dyed-in-the-wool Communist. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar of Tripura state
is one of India’s last Communists with political power, and he is a
fine specimen of this disappearing species. He wears simple cotton
tunics, leads blood donation drives and has a nearly empty personal bank
account. His wife, perhaps even more beloved than he, goes to market by
rickshaw.

But Sarkar’s isolation will probably become even more acute after the
votes are counted in India’s national elections. For the first time,
Communists are likely to win fewer than 16 seats in the national
Parliament, possibly as few as 10. That would be a showing so disastrous
in a body of 543 elected seats that many analysts are predicting their
eventual extinction in a land that has been such fertile ground for
Marx, Lenin and Stalin that these were once popular first names.

“Left-wing politics are alive and well in India, but true Communism
will soon die out,” said Dilip Simeon, an author and former Maoist
guerrilla. “And they have only themselves to blame.” Communism’s looming
disappearance stems from Indians’ deep attachment to parliamentary
democracy, the Communist Party’s failure to embrace Indian nationalism
and a culture that distrusts dogma, said Ramachandra Guha, a prominent
Indian historian.

But some also blame India’s failure to create a large industrial
sector, the natural wellspring for Communist organizing efforts. Nearly
90 percent of workers toil in the cash-based informal sector, where
enterprises are small and jobs so fitful that unionization drives are
nearly impossible. “The one big reason for Communism’s decline is the
irrelevance of the industrial working class as a political factor,” said
Ajoy Bose, an author and commentator. “Indian manufacturing is in a
terrible state.”

Robust enthusiasm

Communism’s redoubt here in Tripura, however, remains robust. The road
into Agartala, the capital, from the airport is lined with red Soviet
hammer-and-sickle flags planted every 15 feet. The party has 50 of 60
seats in Tripura’s Legislative Assembly, and it has controlled the state
government for 31 of the last 36 years — including an unbroken streak
of victories since 1993.

Part of Communism’s success in Tripura has to do with the fecklessness
of its opposition, a branch of the Indian National Congress party whose
corruption and incompetence from 1988 to 1993 were so profound that
people speak about it like survivors of a shipwreck. “The opposition
here is discredited, disorganized and so corrupt that it has no trust
amongst the people,” said Sekhar Datta, the longtime Tripura
correspondent for The Telegraph, a newspaper in Kolkata, formerly
Calcutta.

But Sarkar’s efficient administration and unimpeachable honesty have
also been important factors. In just one example, Tripura ranked first
last year among Indian states in its implementation of a national rural
jobs programme. The state has done such a good job exploiting its
natural gas reserves that Tripura now sells surplus power, and residents
are almost never without electricity, a rarity in India. Roads are
surprisingly good, many city landmarks have been rebuilt, and literacy
levels are among the nation’s highest.

Sarkar surrenders his salary to the party, which recently raised his
monthly stipend to $117 from $83. He lives in a modest house provided by
the state and lists a shelf stuffed with books as his most valuable
possession. In a country awash in political corruption, Sarkar’s monkish
existence is remarkable. “My party has taught me to lead a simple life,
and I have followed that credo since the beginning,” Sarkar said in an
interview.

Other critics say that while Sarkar is genuinely poor, he has ensured
that almost everyone else in the state is as well. “They believe if
people get rich, they won’t be Communists anymore,” said Jayanta
Debnath, managing editor of a widely read local news website. Sarkar
agreed that great wealth is not a communist interest. “We don’t like to
create millionaires or billionaires,” he said. But he denied that he
wanted to keep anyone impoverished. “We want to see that people do not
starve.”

On a steamy evening with just a ceiling fan to cool him, Sarkar showed
no sign of discomfort. His white kurta appeared freshly pressed, and a
gold pen sparkled in a shirt pocket. He blamed Communism’s looming
collapse in India on multinational corporations, which he said have used
media companies to sully the reputation of Communists. “India’s market
is important, and they want in,” Sarkar said. “So they have attacked the
party in its last bastions.” But he vowed to depend upon the party
until the end. After all, it still pays him $117 a month.